Never enough

I remember House Bill 1017, Oklahoma’s largest tax increase ever, which, we were told, would provide all the money the schools would ever need. I remember the same being said of the lottery. I remember seeing schools schedule closures so teachers could go to the Capitol and demonstrate for more money while being paid by the taxpayers.

There are numerous ways to cut education costs without any harmful effects on the quality of education. For example, park the school buses. A case can be made that since we all benefited from our own education, we owe the same to future generations, but I don’t owe them a ride to school. That’s a parent’s responsibility. Oklahoma has more than 500 school districts with superintendents and support staff. This could easily be reduced to 77 (one per county). This would not require closing any schools, no matter how small. School districts were established when there were no cars, no telephones, no Internet. Now any number of schools can easily be administered by one district per county. If this were accomplished by attrition, then no district employee would lose their jobs.

I went to school in the 1950s and ’60s, in classrooms with more than 30 students. Numerous studies have shown that class size has no effect on learning. Teacher unions continue to deny this because smaller classes equals more teachers equals more union members equals more money equals more political power. There will never be enough.

TIRESOME ARGUMENT

OU President David Boren tells us it would be “morally wrong” to fail to support the 1-cent sales tax increase for education. It’s becoming increasingly tiresome to be lectured in this way. I’m sure it occurs to him that the tax solves the education funding problem on the shoulders of the poorest and most needy Oklahomans. What’s the morality of that?

Boren surely realizes that while we’d like to increase, say, teachers’ salaries, many of those families who would suffer have incomes less than one-quarter that of the average teacher. These families’ incomes are less per year than the person sitting on top of OU draws in a week. I’m talking about Boren, not our football coach; the coach makes more in half a day than many poor families make per year.

Speaking of the question of morality, apparently it didn’t come up when OU found itself to be in the possession of a valuable painting stolen from a Jewish family during World War II. OU spent how long stalling and splitting hairs on that? The right or wrong of that should easily have been decided in minutes.

FIX WON’T HAPPEN

Stories about underfunded schools and underpaid teachers are in the news daily. Many schools are opting for four-day weeks to “cut” costs. Is this their way of pressuring working families to vote for the 1-cent sales tax increase? If fewer days at school are such a good idea, why were so many schools moving to year-round models? Why not move to 12-hour days and 125-day school years and be out of school during the storm season and hot summer?

The real cause of the funding crisis is the ineptness of the leaders and the system. Oklahoma City’s superintendent makes $240,000, plus $65,000 in benefits plus $10,000 for a car each year. Could you hire two or three people (totaling less) and get more work done? On the other end, we have hundreds of superintendents, assistants, support staff, etc. Are we paying too many people to do jobs that could be consolidated? Maybe our schools should work on solutions instead of selling tax hikes.

I support teacher raises, but take them from the savings realized after reforming the system. If the current system cannot manage what it has, then providing this increase is not going to fix anything. We will be having the same discussions in 10 years.

A BAD OMEN

Oklahoma finds itself facing a $1.3 billion budget gap, which has led to millions of dollars in budget cuts. Not only do these cuts affect education, but they hurt the departments in health care, human services and mental health. Fellow students at my college are now required to purchase their own scantrons as a direct result of decreased funding. While students buying their own materials is nothing new, an institution requiring its students to purchase what was once supplied by the college is certainly a bad omen for students and professors alike. I strongly believe it’s time to really re-evaluate how our money is being spent.

There are options available for correcting the state’s financial shortfall, such as accepting federal funds toward health care coverage, shifting unnecessary increases in funding from roads to education, and simply being more careful with the money currently in reserves. In the end, something must be done.

MISLEADING SENTENCE

“Gun measures offer few benefits to go with economic downside” (Our Views, April 20) said that, “under existing law and court precedent, Oklahomans can already have firearms in their homes, on their private property and in their vehicles at any time without having to get a permit.” One can only transport a firearm if unloaded and the ammunition is locked in the trunk or glove compartment. You cannot have it in your vehicle loaded without a permit. So if I’m under threat of harm or my life, I am supposed to tell the criminal to “hang on” while I load my gun?

I won’t address the financial aspect of the proposed legislation or what it might cost the OSBI. That is nothing compared with my God-given constitutional right.